Colder Than Mars, They Said

Posted on January 10, 2015 by Larry Marshall

Have you noticed that the news exaggerates everything? They no longer report. Rather, they compete with Downton Abbey and football games for viewers and will do everything and anything to make their program entertaining. I expect that soon, Captain America or Thor will replace Wolf Blitzer as anchor of CNN.

It’s really sad. The week we were told about how Canada was “colder than Mars” a couple days ago. While it’s true that, for a period of a few hours, a part of Canada was colder than where NASA’s robot was on Mars, but Canada didn’t get to -200C when the sun went down like it does on Mars.

Heck, we only got down to -40C and it had warmed all the way up to -36C by the time I got the bright idea to walk to the museum to meet my buddies for a sketching session. For those who are Fahrenheit-challenged, -40C is -40F. Warmer than Mars on a summer’s eve for sure, but still sort of cold by freeze your skin standards.

So off I went, the intrepid sketcher, walking as fast as I could on a 40-minute walk to the museum. A smarter sketcher would have just hopped on a bus but no, I “needed the exercise.”

By the time I got there I realized that I’d been crazy. I could no longer feel my fingers in spite of the heavy gloves I was wearing. My face was on fire and the I was starting to think in terms of how much further I could walk before I’d fall over.

But I finally arrived…warmth. Next problem was how to sketch when I couldn’t feel the pen. I walked around for about 15 minutes before deciding to do a looser sketch than my typical approach, maybe as a result of Liz Steel’s course. I sat down in front of the largest head in the Olympus display. It’s at least two-feet tall and very impressive – more impressive than this sketch suggests. My fountain pens were really cold so I used a Uniball Vision Fine hybrid gel pen, adding a hint of color with Faber-Castell watercolor pencils. Of course, it was drawn in a Stillman & Birn Alpha series sketchbook (10×7).

We took a break, had some tea, and then did a bit more sketching before calling it a day. I took the bus home, a nice, warm bus.

I’m A Little Teapot, Short And Stout…

Posted on December 20, 2014 by Larry Marshall

I’m a little teapot, short and stout,
here is my handle and here is my spout.

That’s what sketching is all about. You find a subject and you put the pieces in their proper locations. Then you’re done. Easy peasy, so what’s the big deal?

I’m having a ball in Liz Steel’s Foundations class. She’s showing us different ways of organizing drawings and the various ways of getting those parts in the right places. This week was “climb out on a thin limb and draw without measuring anything, no set up, no nothing.” This is where eraser users do a lot of scrubbing as “oops…it should be just a bit to the right” or “eek…that’s too long” start being uttered in less than muffled tones.

And so I was at the museum, wandering around looking for something to draw. I’m sort of getting tired of drawing statues of Greek gods and so I found myself in the Quebec history exhibit. It’s an exhibit where you’d think Quebecers lived in caves in the past was the exhibit exists in near darkness, making it hard to sketch anything. Heck, some of the stuff is downright hard to see. Not sure what’s going on there.

But as I was in Liz’s course (she being the patron saint of teacup sketching), and as I was staring at some tea cups, saucers and teapots, I figured I’d found my subject for the class. The only problem was that these items were scattered around a case, not clustered together as in a still life.

But with a bit of mental sliding items around, and a few pen marks to indicate location, I created the arrangement depicted here and went to town with my Namiki Falcon. Here is my handle, here is my spout. I’m really enjoying the De Atramentis document inks and sure hope that Goulet Pens gets some of the other colors back in stock real soon. This sketch took me about 20 minutes, maybe a couple more. It was fun.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (10x7), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black, watercolor pencils

Stillman & Birn Alpha (10×7), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black, watercolor pencils

Sketching A Door

Posted on December 15, 2014 by Larry Marshall

One of the exercises for this week’s Liz Steel Foundations class was to draw a door. This was supposed to be our “outdoor” exercise.

There is nothing I’d rather do than draw outdoors but I’m afraid that weather dictates that I won’t be able to do that until at least April and that’s being optimistic. Not wanting to wait quite that long to do the assignment, I found an alternative. As I was leaving the museum I noticed that if I sat down just inside the rear entrance, I could see the door across the street. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

The door leads into the Hotel Saint Pierre but the door has a far richer history as it served as the main entrance of the “Quebec Assurance Building,” and the interesting thing is that this is carved, in English, in the upper reaches of the building – a remnant of times past as it’s fairly rare to find English written anywhere in Quebec City.

The exercise goal was to ‘set up by measurement’ and thus the principle goal was “..to be as accurate as possible.” I can’t say that I was (sorry Liz) but I did it in my typical cartoony style and in spite of what it looks like, I did measure, with my thumb stuck up in the air and everything. I really enjoyed sketching something that wasn’t a statue and I think I need to look around for some more doors to look out of.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (10×7), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Black

Sketching On A Sunday Morning

Posted on December 14, 2014 by Larry Marshall

I went to the museum this morning and decided to draw a short column piece featuring three woman. I didn’t have my pencil case with me so I decided to do it in my sketchbook (10×7), using my Namiki Falcon. This is one time when I wished for larger paper as it was hard to capture all the detail in what is roughly an 8″ high sketch. But it was a bundle of fun to do.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (10x7), Namiki Falcon, DeAtramentis Docu Black ink

Stillman & Birn Alpha (10×7), Namiki Falcon, DeAtramentis Docu Black ink

Addendum: I was playing around last night and added just a hint of color to this sketch. I think it improved it somewhat, mostly by removing some of the starkness of the black on white. I didn’t want to turn it into a color sketch but now I’m wondering what it would look like if I increased the tonal variation even more. What do you think?

Doing Stand Up, Sketcher Style

Posted on December 12, 2014 by Larry Marshall

What does a street sketcher do when it’s snowing and there are 80 km/hr gusts blowing it around? Cry in some beer? Sketch lemons? Sketch a recipe for lemonade? I was at a loss.

Normal art people just head to their studio and draw or paint to their heart’s content, but I really have a hard time sketching without going somewhere first. I know…I should take a pill to get over it, but I’m old and already taking too many of those.

So, I decided, why not do something that might help me when I do get to go onto the street to sketch. One of my big problems is that while I’m very comfortable sitting on my tripod stool and can sketch up a storm there, I struggle when I try to sketch standing up. I’m not sure why. My belly is sufficiently large to hold a sketchbook, afterall.

Anyways, that’s what I decided to do – sketch while standing. I went into my office, picked up sketchbook and pen, looked around and decided to draw the three principle books that stand on my desk. I added a bit of the surroundings for context. And yes, there is lots of stuff on those shelves but you think I’m going to let you see what a mess my office is? Not a chance.

I still find sketching while standing up a struggle. I lose not only some of my control over the pen but also some of my ability to concentrate. The later is the bigger loss and I’m not sure why it occurs at all. Maybe I need to stand around sketching more often. Any tips for a stand-up-challenged sketcher?

Stillman & Birn Alpha (9x12), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Docu Black ink

Stillman & Birn Alpha (9×12), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Docu Black ink

I’m a little teapot, short and stout, here is my handle and here is my spout.

I’m a little teapot, short and stout,
here is my handle and here is my spout.